Chapter 1: A Bloody Birthday Gift

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Welp this is the first chapter...... No prologue full of exposition, no reincarnation, no lengthy rambling made by a nameless narrator.... I'm just throwing you guys right into the story.

Sink or swim readers, sink or swim...... well, it's not actually that drastic but you get the idea...

Hope You Enjoy!!!!!

It was hard to think and everything was getting fuzzy. I could hardly make out the man holding me anymore, all I could see were his eyes. They kept shifting as red bleed into violet and then violet slowly bleed back into the red, those eyes were strangely captivating.

I had always thought that everything was supposed to slow down when a person is dying and that their life would flash before their eyes, I wasn’t experiencing any of that and I was fairly sure I was dying right now. I almost felt cheated, but then again it was hard to feel anything when I was staring into those eyes.

“It’s your lucky day warlock, most would beg to receive a gift as incredible as this. In fact, why don’t you beg too?” His voice was strangely melodic and alluring, when I heard it I found myself nodding and thinking that what he suggested was a perfect idea.

I opened my mouth to beg for my gift just like the man suggested. “Pweegh, I’gth likkt mygth grihft.” Was all I could get out with the man holding me up by the throat. I didn’t think he could make out what I was trying to say so I kept trying, “Pwweese, I’fd lic myph gigft... Plweese, I’th likkt myh gaft...” It was hard to speak, but by the fact the man was smiling I must be doing something right.

“Heh, it’s always funny to watch their wills collapse into nothing. Too bad I don’t have more time to enjoy this, damn Council...” I was still trying to beg like the man wanted, but I didn’t think I was doing it well enough. It made me a bit sad because I needed to do as he said, that’s all I could make out from the violent and crimson that was swirling through my mind. “Well enough fun for now… Kid I’m going to need you to do something. I’ll need you to test something for me, you can manage that can’t you?”

I stopped trying to speak and simply nodded at the man, I could probably do that. At the very least I would give it a shot, I needed to.

“Great, though it’s not like you could have said no. After this you’ll probably hate me, well that is if my calculations were correct and you actually survive unlike the others...” The man’s grip tightened on my neck. “Now tell me where you live kid.”

I did, I told him where my neighborhood and the town house were. Then I absolutely freaked out. Here I was telling some psycho who was damn near choking me to death about where I lived with a big dopey smile on my face, all I could think was that I had lost my mind. At least Mom was out for the night so even if this guy made his way to the house she wouldn’t be there to add to his victim count.

“Well thanks kid, very clear directions you gave there. You’d be surprised by the number of people your age who don’t know their own address, it’s actually pretty sad.” I just glared at the man. Whatever it was he did that made me so agreeable and loopy was fading now, and in its place anger and hatred were growing. “Wow kid, you sure regained your willpower quickly. You must be from one of the stronger warlock families, maybe even one of the original lines…” The man’s smile grew and I saw that his teeth were inordinately white and his canines were uncomfortably long. “You might actually end up surviving…”

I mustered up my courage and looked at the man holding me, I then did what might be one of the dumbest things of my life and spat in his face.

Fuck you asshole, you ruined my eighteenth birthday. I thought with pure spite. I figured that I was going to die anyway, so why not show this guy how much I thought of him. It was part of my school of thought that if you couldn’t beat ‘em and you couldn’t join ‘em and after all that you still couldn’t get away from ‘em, might as well let them know what you really thought of them.

“Ah, and you have some back bone as well. You were a nice find kid, shame you didn’t put up much of a fight though.” If I wasn’t getting so light headed from how he was holding me I would’ve tried kicking him below the belt. “If you had used a few demons or curses this could’ve been more interesting. Ah well, maybe the next one will be more fun.” The man chuckled then stopped suddenly and leaned in close to my face, once again all that I could focus on were his strange eyes. “Now sleep kid, I need to get to work.”

I felt my eyes slowly close even as my mind raged against it, as my eyes closed I heard the man speak one last time. “I have no idea why master wants us to do this, hell if someone actually managed to survive this insane process…”

***

The day had started out so well, I had even managed to get my foot in the door at Fantasy Works. It was one step towards my dream of working for the publication company, I was even fairly sure I could secure myself an internship in the editing department soon. Mom brought out ice-cream cake when I came back home, and we had spent the day watching B-list zombie flicks before she had to head out for work and I went out to head towards that abandoned park I liked to go to when I wanted a quiet place to be alone.

I had passed a guy who looked like he had blacked out in the alley next to a bar, and deciding to be a decent person I went to at least help him back into the bar and out of the cold. I had tried getting him up and then suddenly I was slammed up against the wall and being held off the ground by the throat. After that things start getting fuzzier but I still remember the gist of what happened, I couldn’t tell if I was more terrified or pissed off.

Looking around I saw that I was in a strange red place with leafless dead trees and swirling black clouds, it looked like something that belonged on a metal album cover. I actually kind of liked how the place looked but I’d hate to have to live somewhere like this, I wouldn’t even want to vacation here. I wondered if this was hell, it had a sort of hellish look to it after all.

“Well shit, I ended up in hell, huh?” I shook my head and tried scuffing the rocky ground with my shoes. “I guess I should’ve lived a more righteous life, maybe donated to charity more and lusted of girls less. I guess sleeping in could count as an act of sloth too, oh and then there are all those other deadly sins I’ve committed…”

I wondered for a moment if it was normal for a person’s clothes to come with them to hell, not that I was complaining. I’d much rather go through the whole eternal damnation thing in my black hoodie and jeans than I would buck naked like some depictions of hell suggest.

“Oh relax Alex, this isn’t hell. Hell doesn’t even exist, well at least not in the way you are thinking of it.” I heard the voice coming from the sky and when I looked up I saw purple lightning flash in the clouds. “Think of this place as more of a temporary dreamscape inside your mind, and you’ll be leaving here soon enough.”

I was just starting to process that I wasn’t dead just dreaming, and as I started thinking how cool it was I was aware in one of my dreams I felt myself begin to wake up. I watched the landscape start to blur and fade away and heard something that was less than encouraging. “Do try to fight through the transition, I’d hate for us to die so soon…”

***

I woke up shivering and in pain, my vision was strangely blurry and tinged with red but I could make out a flat-screen over a marbled gas fireplace, light brown walls, and the long brown sectional couch I was laying on. I could recognize everything as being part of my house’s living room, but how I got there was a lot less clear. The best I could figure was I was dropped off here by the guy who I last remembered choking me and making threatening random statements, why he would do that I didn’t know but I didn’t see or hear him hanging around the house so I assumed he left.

I hope he didn’t rob us, mom would be so pissed if I let the house get robbed on my watch. I thought as I tried to sit up. After shooting pain went through my entire body I abandoned that effort and settled for just shutting my eyes tight and groaning in pain. I felt a strong stinging pain all over my body, and to make things worse the stinging seemed to be coming from the inside of my body and radiated out.

The pain was immense, and it only grew as time went on. It got to the point where I almost hoped I would die just so the pain would stop, even the slightest movement or twitch flooded me with new worse pain. I couldn’t even scream since the pain was so bad it stripped me of my voice. I couldn’t even black out, and at this point I would’ve considered blacking out to be the greatest thing ever.

Ripping sensations and sharp pain in my mouth and my fingers quickly pushed the other stinging pain into the background, after that I felt a burning in my eyes and in my head, then came a grinding pain inside my body all over. I gasped and groaned when I felt the pain begin to ebb away until it was a dull throbbing all over, I almost cried from relief. I let myself relax a little and sink deeper into the couch cushions only for my skin to suddenly feel like it was on fire, that was when I started to scream and a whole new wave of pain worse than before began cutting my scream off. Instead of screams and groans I was reduced to agonized gurgling noises and the taste of acrid blood that burned like fire flooding my mouth.

I wasn’t sure when the pain stopped, for me it seemed like it had lasted an eternity, but I found myself drifting off to sleep feeling better than I could ever remember feeling. I didn’t fight as my eyes closed and I let sleep overtake me, it had been a long day. My last thought was simple.

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